Sorrow
by mystic monkeys
Summary: Sonfic based on the music video for Sorrow by Flyleaf, has NO lyrics in it except one line at the end, just a story based on the video. Written for a competion, but turned it in too late, which is why I still have rights to it. YAY!


She awoke in blackness so deep that she would have thought she was still sleeping if it weren't for the acute nature of my consciousness so contradictory to the encumbrance of sleep. She lay on the ground for indeterminable moments passing the time by becoming nothingness. Who she was fell away, leaving a void that was yet to be filled by a monumental decision. The lights suddenly flared on, and she found herself suddenly upright. She stood staring out across my new surroundings.

She was standing in the Theater of the Past, merely worn in some places an in shambles in others. She looked around in more detail. Basic black stage, paint chipped with the transportation of so many sets and shiny with the passage of so many feet and bodies. Seats visible five rows back; blood-red velvet plush set into gold-painted, filigree-carved wooden frames, shortly disappearing into a haze of shadows created by the wall of stage lights.

She looked upstage and her eyes lit upon the most beautiful ball gown she had ever seen, resting on a gold wire-frame mannequin. It had a black-and-white striped silk bodice with golden embroideries ant trimmings in the style of a seventeenth-century corset. The full skirts were of the same blood-red velvet as the faded seats, stopping above mid-thigh, and the hem was adorned with the frilled edges of a black petticoat. The ensemble was completed by black fishnet stockings and gloves of the same material that extended up the full length of the arm, and eccentric heels in the same shade of blood.

She felt somehow in the emptiness that this dress was made for her. She was nothing now, but this was the step towards her completion. Towards me. She approached the mannequin with a growing sense of excitement. She bowed to the matronly bearer of her triumphantly regal gown, removed the garment from its frame, and slipped it over her head. The silk and velvet were light and watery as they floated over her bare skin. When she laced the corset up and the bow at the seam where bodice met skirt was completed, the lights began flashing on and off quickly like a hyped-up strobe. The faded glory of the Theater of the Past disappeared into flashes of light and dark, dark and light, light and dark, until the opposites met and blended into something that was nothing but mere existence.

When senses failed and then were reborn and returned to her lifeless body, she found herself in a pearlescent pink dressing room with golden accents. Her wrists were handcuffed behind her back. She still didn't know her name or who she was, but she had an overwhelming knowledge of what she was about to do. She in her dressing room and waited until she was called by an unseen and unheard knowledge of obligation.

She pushed gently on the heavy marble door that sat so loosely on its hinges, and it swung outwards in a gently arch. She descended down a decayed but sepulchrally beautiful staircase of worn cherry wood. At the bottom was a large set of dark wooden double-doors, inlaid with mother-of-pearl. The shells formed the images of malevolent elves and cheery sprites dancing the dance of life and death and renaissance. She grabbed the oxidized silver handles and pushed. The passage through the wings of the Theater of the Past was familiar, for she had been here before. She stopped behind the drawn curtains and felt the silence of the crowd waiting, pregnant with expectation. She now stood beside a large glass tank of water, waiting expectantly.

She heard the footsteps of the Ringmaster echo around the cavernous Theater as he crossed the lonely stage. She heard the whistles and cheers of the crowd. She heard the screech of the ancient microphone and the cacophonous voice of the Ringmaster saying,

"Ladies and gentlemen, tonight I present to you something like no other: Sorrow. Enjoy the show."

The curtain dropped as the Ringmaster threw his microphone. Three things happened simultaneously. The curtain hit the ground. The microphone hit the ground. And the band started playing their chord-heavy music.

She suddenly felt way too exposed her my short dress and fishnets, once she saw the crowd eyeing her expectantly. She looked to her family and friends in the front rows, the only rows visible; they were cheering her on. She looked over at the band composed of her closest friends ; they were dressed in re-vamped seventeenth century getups as she was. Their eyes were heavily lined with kohl like hers, and their long hair covered and uncovered their faces as they moved to the pulse of _Sorrow_ by Flyleaf. Their faces bore grins that were meant to be encouraging, but that appeared feral to her uncertain gaze.

She faced the crowd and waited for one… two… three… four… five… six…seven long moments as the crown fell silent

She turned to the old wooden stepladder and as she stepped up the first rung the crowd went wild again. The Ringleader shouted over them into the mike,

"Ladies and Gentlemen, you will remember this night!"

She continued on my way up the ladder and stopped at the edge of the decayed narrow platform. The audience immediately hushed while the band played on in the wings, and she breathed deep the last breath of sorrow as she prepared to drown the Past. She saw her reflection in the unbroken surface of the water, closed her eyes, and leapt.

As soon as her head was submerged, all sound was gone except the heady pulse of the bass. She lay in the womb-like environment for countless moments, and the lack of oxygen gave her mind a diaphanous clarity.

I knew who I was. I remembered my past and my driving reason for jumping. I felt the pain from that past, and then I felt it slowly ebb away in conjunction with the exodus of my life. I looked out on the audience and saw their horror-stricken faces as they realized I wasn't moving.

Before I blacked out, I felt a warm hand grab my neck and start to pull me out

_Joy will come!_


End file.
